Smiirn muttered something. Hank was close enough to hear that Smiirn was going to put a knife into someone's heart after this was all over. Sharts and Blogo glared at him but said nothing.
A thickly painted metal ladder led to a hole in the ceiling twenty feet above the floor. Sharts, his torch gripped by his teeth, went up the ladder rapidly even though it was not built for a man his size. He climbed through the hole and leaned out over it, the torchlight making his eyes look even weirder. "Come on up."
The birds riding on their shoulders, the men ascended one by one. Hank found himself in another room. This had more space than the one below. It, too, was hewn out of rock except for one wall of huge blocks of dark purplish stone, the wall of the castle. They were outside its dungeons.
This room also had another twenty-foot-high metal ladder leading into another hole in the ceiling. When they had climbed that, they were in a room which had two levels. The upper one could be reached by a ten-foot ladder. It was a narrow platform hewn out of rock, and an iron door with massive hinges and a massive bolt was set within the inside wall.
Sharts went to the upper level and took a can of oil from his knapsack. He oiled the bolt thoroughly and then pulled it, though not without some straining. He had to stop now and then to apply more lubrication. Even so, the bolt squeaked. Having drawn that, he oiled the hinges and carefully pulled it open by a big handle. It required more oil, and it squeaked. But it came fully open.
Sharts looked inside the doorway and signalled that the others should follow him. When Hank went through the doorway, he was at the bottom of a shaft which had been cored out of the massive stone blocks. The ladder was a series of painted metal rungs set into the stone. Hank hoped that the rungs had not rusted away, but those he could see seemed to be unaffected by the damp.
Hank took the BAR from its case and hung it by its strap over his shoulder. He set the middle part of the torch, which had been whittled down, in his teeth. He started climbing.
So far, their route had been exactly as described by Glinda.
He marveled at her patience and planning. The castle was two hundred years old. Glinda must have had the tunnel and rooms prepared before the castle was built. Her agents must have taken twenty years to make this shaft. They had had to chip away very slowly and carefully not to be detected. She must always have had her agents planted in the house in the basement of which the tunnel began. They had nothing to do except pretend to be good citizens of Wugma and to wait for the day when the tunnel would be used. There must have been many generations of agents. But they would have been well paid.
And this was the woman that the U.S. Army was tackling.
The ladder went up and up. Finally, he pulled himself over the edge. A door in the wall only two feet from the shaft was open. Its hinges dripped oil. Hank stooped through the entrance, which was low for the pygmies. The others were in a low narrow room lit only by the torches. The fumes from the burning oil-soaked pine caught at his throat and made his eyes water.
Blogo put his fingers to his lips when Hank entered. Sharts rose from the floor, against which he had had his ear. He stooped and gripped a ring set in the floor, and a trapdoor rose. Though its hinges had been oiled, it, too, squeaked.
The drop to the floor below was twenty feet. The two men carrying coiled ropes over their shoulders gave them to Sharts, who tied the end of one to a hooked bolt set into the wall. This was more evidence of Glinda's planning. She had known that the room below could only be reached by a rope, and she had ordered the installation of the bolt.
Sharts let himself down into the room by the rope. The others followed. The room was large and unwindowed, and dust was thick on the floor and the objects stored there.
The only door was locked. Sharts produced a key from the knapsack and unlocked the door. More evidence of Glinda's foresight. She had had a duplicate made from the steward's key long ago.
Outside the door was a long dusty drafty hall. A heavily barred window covered with dust and spiderwebs was at one end. The footprints there were half-filled with more dust.
Smiirn sneezed, causing everybody to jump.
"There'll be no more of that," Sharts said softly.
They waited, hoping that no one had heard Smiirn. After a minute, Sharts led them to the stairway halfway down the hall. There was complete silence except for the shuffling of feet, someone breathing heavily, and a hawk's wings rustling.
The stairway led to another hall the far end of which held the only torch. There were numerous comparatively fresh footprints on the dust-covered stone floor. Sharts, a loaded and cocked crossbow in one hand, peered around the corner. He signalled that they should follow him and went down another hall. Reaching another stairway, he halted.
According to what Hank had learned from Glinda, two human guards and a falcon would be stationed at the bottom of the staircase. If anyone came in from above, and that must have seemed very unlikely to Erakna, the falcon would fly away to arouse the guards on other floors. The two men were supposed to hold any invaders until help could come. Though the two must have known they were actually sacrifices, they would not be uneasy. How could anybody come from above? The windows were few, and all were barred against hawk assassins. Nobody could climb the castle walls.
Sharts indicated that the two men with crossbows should follow him and that two hawks should get on their shoulders. The others would appear about ten paces behind if they heard a hullabaloo. Then they would charge en masse.
In single file, they went down the stairs. Sharts peeked around the comer. When he pulled back his head, he whispered something to the two hawks and the two men. Hank, who was standing near the top of the stairs, could not hear him.
Sharts lifted his hand and sprang out into the hall. The two crossbowmen jumped out after him, the hawks rising from their shoulders just as they did.
There was a spang! as the three bolts sped toward their targets. A choked-off cry.
When Hank got to the bodies, he saw that Sharts's bolt had gone through the falcon as it lifted from its perch. A bolt had hit one guard near the spine, penetrating the chain mail and half-burying itself. Another bolt had gone through the back of the shoulder of the guard, who was lying speechless on the floor, dying of shock. Blogo cut his throat.
Hank felt like vomiting.
There was no noise from the well of the staircase a few feet beyond the dead. The guards below had heard nothing, Hank hoped. It could be that they had stayed silent, had sent a hawk to the guards on the floor below them, and were waiting to ambush the intruders.
Sharts went to the bottom of the next staircase, stuck his head around the corner, and quickly withdrew it. He came back up the steps.
"One guard's asleep. So's the hawk. Same plan. This should be like cutting through pumpkin pie." It was.
Hank looked at his wristwatch. They had an hour before Erakna was scheduled to return to her suite two stories below. She was said to be very punctual, and she should return on time. But many things might happen to delay her.
The change of watch would take place in an hour and fifteen minutes. There was always a danger, however, that an officer might make a surprise check on the guards. Two of Sharts's men would be stationed to kill the officer if this should happen.
There was also the chance that some of the dwellers in the apartments on the queen's floor might come home early. The distant but unmistakable rumble of thunder came. Hank swore. If it rained or there was a storm, the rally would break up.
Sharts, grimacing, went down the next staircase. He raced back up a minute later.
"I almost got caught," he said. "The guards walked down the hall to look out the window, but I ducked back behind the corner just in time."
He told the two crossbowmen and the two hawks to follow him. Hank glanced at his wristwatch as they left. It was exactly sixty-two seconds later when Sharts came back up. "Done," he said. "Now comes the hard part." The hawk there had been sleeping. Sharts had trod softly down the hall while the two guards obligingly kept their backs to him by looking out at the thunder and lightning. Sharts had cut the hawk's head off, and the two guards were dead, pierced by bolts, a second later.